Alarm At Refugee Camp Near Texas-Mexico Border After Person Tests Positive For COVID-19
HOUSTON (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A person has tested positive for the novel coronavirus virus in a refugee camp along the Mexican border near Texas, where an estimated 2,000 people are awaiting their immigration court dates, according to a nonprofit group providing medical care at the camp.
Global Response Management said in a statement Tuesday that the positive test came back Monday for one person and negative for three family members. Tests are pending for two other people.
Residents in the camp in Matamoros, Mexico, live in squalid conditions: Most sleep in tents or underneath tarps, and there's little access to running water. The nonprofit group has long warned that a single case of the coronavirus could spread quickly.
"The presence of COVID-19 in an already vulnerable population exposed to the elements could potentially be catastrophic," the group said in a statement.
The people living in the camp are mostly awaiting court dates just across the border in Brownsville, Texas, under a Trump administration program known as "Remain in Mexico." Instituted last year along the border, the "Remain" program has sent tens of thousands of people seeking asylum back to Mexico instead of allowing them to await their court dates in the U.S.
There have been numerous reports of migrants being kidnapped, attacked, or extorted while waiting their court dates.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
